


The Eyes of Blenheim: Chapter Three

by itstonedme



Series: The Eyes of Blenheim [3]
Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: AU, Edwardian Period, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-18
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2018-01-09 03:11:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1140747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itstonedme/pseuds/itstonedme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Orlijah meets <i>Downton Abbey</i>.  Orlando is the 9th Duke of Marlborough, residing with his wife and two small children at the family estate, Blenheim Palace. Elijah is the duke's personal valet. The year is 1905: recent inventions include the automobile, the telephone and electric lighting. Class distinction based on landed wealth is pronounced.</p><p>Disclaimer: All fiction. No disrespect intended to real persons.</p><p>Feedback: Always welcomed.  First posted on LJ <a href="http://itstonedme.livejournal.com/93015.html#cutid1">here</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Eyes of Blenheim: Chapter Three

**Chapter 3**

The next morning, Elijah rises earlier than is his custom and by seven o'clock his luggage has been packed and left on the top step of the north portico for stowing on the motor carriage. The night before had been a later one than usual as well, and so he is tired. However, where the duke travels, Elijah travels as well, and so he has had to prepare not only his employer's wardrobe and necessities but his own for the overnight stay in London. It is less than a two-hour journey by motor carriage, of which the duke owns several, including a covered Albion touring car that will provide their comfortable transportation into the city. It is primarily a business trip; neither the duchess nor the children will be accompanying them.

He enters the duke's apartment with the silver tea service a short while later. The duke has already arisen and is in his bedroom clad in his night shirt, laying the clothing Elijah has prepared for his travels on the bed, which he has stripped of its coverlets to the floor.

"Your Grace, good morning," Elijah calls out, rushing to deposit the tea service on the writing table so that he can attend to the duke. "Please, allow me," he says, coming into the bedroom. "You should not have to bother with that."

Orlando turns to face him. "Wood, allow me, if you don't mind, some of life's simpler activities, like folding my own clothes for you to pack. There was a time when I wasn't quite so helpless. Speaking of my helplessness, get the bath started if you would, and then you can come and take over here."

If they were both to admit it, although they are not, they would confide that, over the duration of Elijah's employment, there has developed a discernible reduction in the amount of physical space they keep between each other. It hasn't been entirely normal from Elijah's point of view, but then his relations with his employer haven't followed an entirely proscribed pattern. It may be due to the closeness of their ages and the modernness the duke brings to his role. Whatever the reason, once Elijah hastens through his bathroom chores and returns, he takes the garments directly from the duke's hands like a bit of a hen so that he might assume his responsibilities.

This elicits a raised brow and a smile from Orlando. "You take great pride in your job," the duke says as he stands next to Elijah, pulling off his night shirt – under which he wears nothing – and dropping it on the carpet.

Elijah carefully avoids looking at him. "I do," he nods.

"Then we are an excellent pair," the duke says, turning and walking towards the bathroom. "Because I take pleasure in making sure that you remain happy." 

Elijah steals a glance as the duke walks away, much as he steals one every morning. He has come to realize that there is a degree of truth to the notion that a nobleman stripped of his apparel is simply a man after all, although in Elijah's instance, it has less to do with the arrogance of noblemen being brought down to earth than it has to do with the magnificence of the naked male form being elevated to a work of art. 

"Are you quite done?" Orlando calls out a few minutes later through the opened bathroom doorway. "Don't forget our tea." 

Elijah has not finished – only the duke's evening wear for his dinner tonight with his aunt has been packed – but he stops his sorting and removes his jacket, placing it on the back of the farthingale chair, after which he rolls back his sleeves and goes to pour two cups of tea. When he walks into the bathroom, the duke is sitting up in the tub with his hand out, a wet flannel pinched between his fingers, smiling expectantly. Elijah deposits the cups within reach for both of them and takes the towel, laying it over the back of the tub. He picks up a clean hand towel, which he folds and lays it on the floor; he has found that kneeling on it is far more comfortable than bending from his waist to wash His Grace's back.

"I expect we'll arrive at the Savoy by ten, and I'll leave you to sort our luggage while Boyd takes me to the bank," Orlando says as Elijah rewets the wash cloth and lathers it. "We'll come back to pick you up before we drop in on my aunt. Her name is Philippa, but I know you'll be more comfortable calling her My Lady, since that is what she is. She was married to my uncle and while she has travelled a very similar path as my wife, being a rich American, they are quite dissimilar. She is very entertaining and modern in her outlook despite her years. I'm sure she'll make you blush." 

Elijah can feel his face heating at the duke's mere mention of it.

"After our play, she and I plan to dine, so I hope you don't mind fending for yourself. I shouldn't be too late. How well do you know London?" the duke asks.

"Not as well as you, I am sure," Elijah says, working the cloth over His Grace's shoulders. 

"Differently, I suppose," Orlando says. "Well, you can dine in or out. There are several nearby taverns if you're up for an exploration, or you can have a meal in your room. I need to wash my hair," Orlando says, abruptly changing the topic. "Do you mind passing me the rinse cup?"

Elijah quickly finishes washing the duke's back and collects the metal cup from a nearby shelf. Orlando takes it and scoops from the bath water to wet his hair, leaning forward to let it drip between his legs. When he is finished, he holds his hand out, palm curled for the scoop of hair shampoo that Elijah spoons onto it from a pot he has taken from the shelf. The shampoo itself is a mixture of bay rum and other ingredients that condition the scalp, very astringent but pleasant-smelling. However, it is not something one would wish to get in one's eyes, so Orlando squinches his lids tightly and lifts his hand to lather his hair.

But between his tightly closed eyes and Elijah's soap slippery hands, the duke accidentally knocks the pot from Elijah's grip where it falls into the tub between Orlando's bent knees.

"Damn!" Elijah says unguardedly because he was stupid to have let this happen, and he reflexively reaches into the water to retrieve it. 

"Did it break?" the duke asks, freezing his motion, eyes still tightly closed.

"No, I don't think so," Elijah says before cursing again, clearly annoyed because now he can't even see through the thin slick of soap suds on the water's surface as to where the pot has settled. His fingers are embarrassingly finding inner calf and tub enamel and everything but the pot.

Orlando resumes working the shampoo through his hair and begins to laugh. "You best be careful, Wood, or you'll grab more than you bargained for."

Elijah has flushed scarlet, and he is far too flustered to find any of this funny or to simply slide the suds out of the way. He automatically dips his other hand into the bath to aid in his search, and his sleeves, rolled only halfway up his forearms, are now both wet. He is working his way from the duke's ankle backward, but as he passes his knees, Orlando's shampoo-slick hand blindly comes down and grips Elijah's forearm, holding it still.

"As much as I wouldn't mind, I know you would be mortified, Wood," Orlando says quietly, his eyes still shut. "I think I've found it." 

With his other hand, he retrieves the pot which has rolled on its side from Elijah's turbulent search and come to rest against his testicles. "Here," he says holding it above the surface and releasing Elijah's arm. 

Elijah is stunned by so many bits of information -- including His Grace's casual admission that if his bollocks were to be compromised by his valet, he wouldn't object -- that he doesn't know which one to land on. "I've ruined your bath water," he says for lack of anything better as he sets the flooded pot on the floor. 

"I think it was I who ruined the bath water," Orlando says calmly, returning both hands to massage his scalp. "But help me get this stuff out of my hair so I can see. I suspect you are right and that if I stay in here much longer, I'll shrivel from all the bay rum."

Elijah turns on the taps, adjusting the water temperature, and takes the rinse cup that Orlando has picked up from the bottom of the tub. He fills it and pours it over the duke's hair several times, gingerly working the water through his locks so that it will rinse faster. Orlando finally squeezes out the excess and throws his head back, spraying Elijah in the process. He has opened his eyes and can now see Elijah's embarrassment. 

"I suspect you would have become less wet bathing my son than bathing me," the duke says, making light to put Elijah at ease.

"I am so very sorry," Elijah says in a rush. He cannot even begin to count the infractions – the swearing, the clumsiness, poking around the duke's naked body, a body he fears he has been far too close to in all these months, which in itself is adding to his unease. It is all tumbling together in his mind, this mess of emotions, all caught up with his inadequacies both personal and professional. 

Orlando reaches out and grips Elijah's wrist once again. "Wood," he says gently. "You are far too hard on yourself. Nothing was damaged, no one was hurt. It was an accident of little importance. None of us are perfect, although God knows you try very hard to be. Look at me."

Elijah's uncertain eyes flicker upwards. 

"Nothing you do has ever disappointed me," Orlando says. "I value the attention you pay to my affairs and your quiet company. You will let this go now, understood?"

Elijah nods, a quick jerk, and he smiles, even more briefly. "You are very kind," he says in a near whisper. 

"Not according to my wife, not this week anyway," Orlando says, releasing Elijah's wrist. "And did you know that being somewhat dishevelled actually suits you? Hand me my towel, if you would."

Elijah quickly stands and holds out a heated towel for the duke to wrap around himself. 

"You'll need to dry off too," Orlando tells him, taking the towel as he steps out of the tub. "Let's get this packing done so that we can start out."

*

Twenty minutes later, Elijah emerges from the duke's bedroom with the tea service balanced across his forearm and starts down the hallway. He has buttoned His Grace's cuffs, fixed his tie, helped him into his waistcoat and brushed the back and shoulders of his jacket. Two pieces of luggage are now standing in the hallway beside his door; Elijah will send the valet to collect them before he finishes in the kitchen and changes into his own travel clothes. 

Coincidence would have it that the duchess is coming down the hall from her apartment at this very moment, Miss Otto in her wake. This is the first time Elijah's path has crossed with Her Grace's since the incident in the dining room the morning before, and he steps aside and bows his head as they make to pass with a polite, "Good morning, Your Grace." He is hoping that she will continue on her way with nary a glance in his direction; he has endured enough commotion this morning as it is. 

The duchess, however, stops directly in front of him. "I understand that you and the duke are off to London shortly," she says, and there is a noticeable lack of warmth in her voice today. Whether she is annoyed with Elijah or embarrassed by her own behaviour, he does not know, although he highly suspects it is the former as a result of the latter. Regardless, as the expression goes she is not amused, and given that he is staff, he must bear the brunt of it.

"We should be leaving no later than half past eight," Elijah replies, glancing to her briefly.

"I'm surprised it wasn't earlier. Did he sleep late?"

"He arose at his usual time, Your Grace. He bathed, and has dressed and taken a light breakfast in his room."

"Goodness," she says coolly. "All these baths. He is certainly becoming the cleanest man I've ever known. Enjoy your time in London, Wood."

"Thank you, Your Grace," he replies, but already he is talking to thin air as she moves down the hallway. He glances to Miss Otto, who meets him with a stony stare. 


End file.
